There’s been some outrage on political blogs about the following tweet sent out by CNN political reporter Peter Hamby:

Wisconsin officially a battleground: President Barack Obama going to Milwaukee next weekend > donate.barackobama.com/page/contribut…

— Peter Hamby (@PeterHambyCNN) September 13, 2012

At issue: Hamby links to a donation page for President Obama’s reelection campaign, a page which also notes that the campaign is planning an event in Wisconsin. Some online pundits argued that this one tweet proved that Hamby (and the media as a whole) is in the tank for President Obama.

There is just one problem: Hamby was breaking news, namely that the Obama campaign decided that Wisconsin was now in play politically. The camaign made no announcement of its Wisconsin push, only releasing information on the donation page. The AP published a story at about the same time Hamby did, also based on the event on the campaign website.

CNN contributor Erick Erickson defended Hamby on his blog RedState, and on Twitter:

Folks, @peterhambycnn is not in the tank for Obama. He tweeted a link in which Obama admits suddenly WI is in play.That’s news. — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) September 17, 2012

Hamby himself took to Twitter to explain:

It’s news that Obama is returning to Wisc. I linked to page where the trip was first revealed, which happened to be a fundraising page (1/2)

— Peter Hamby (@PeterHambyCNN) September 17, 2012

News can often be found on fundraising pages – I was simply alerting people to Obama’s change in strategy (2/2)

— Peter Hamby (@PeterHambyCNN) September 17, 2012